Application of the peer learning principles in the field of education has a long history. Lot of research has been done by psychologists, sociologists and educators on this and results have been positive. Peer learning has been seen as an effective methodology for gain deeper understanding of the concepts by formal or informal interaction among the peers. Peer learning promotes active participation among students and gives them a space to re-enforce their own learning. Since, the students share common educational or professional backgrounds, it creates interest in the topic. It also gives students a platform to build their communication, presentation and teaching skills.
We at IPH, used one of the aspects of peer learning principles, for our e-learning course in Public Health Management (ePHM). Based on their performance in the course, we selected the top ten students of 2015 batch. We invited them to take classroom sessions for their peers. The theme of the classroom session was – “One Challenge – One Public Health Management Principle”. The students had to talk about one challenge they faced at their workplace and how they applied one public health management principle to overcome the same. The objective of this exercise was to give an opportunity to the students to share their experiences from the field with the fellow students and at the same time give them a feel of how we record our online classrooms.
The response from the invited students was amazing. The students who were based in Bengaluru visited our office and recorded a session with us. Others who were residing outside Bengaluru had a hangout or Skype session with us and recorded the classroom. The students took sessions on different topics like community participation, systems thinking, leadership and development, breast feeding and health systems dynamics framework. We converted their sessions into online classrooms and uploaded it on our online platform, Moodle for sharing with their peers.
It was very interesting to see how the students, who are busy professionals also, took out time and prepared Powerpoint presentations and recorded sessions with us. Our next step is to understand from students how they benefited from this learning methodology. Since, this is the era of experimentation, we would love to step ahead and explore other peer learning methodologies in our courses for enhanced learning experience!
You can catch a glimpse of the peer classroom sessions by clicking on the image:
I am a Lecturer at Makerere University College of Health Sciences, School of Public Health, Uganda. I am involved in training and supervising Master of Public Health Distance Education (MPH-‐DE) students at the College. Supervision of Distance Education students requires skills to enable the student benefit from the interaction with supervisor and for the supervisor to be able to deliver to the students’ expectations. As a Disaster Resilience Research Fellow, I have just completed a Distance /E-‐learning certificate course in Disaster Resilience Leadership (DRL).
Institute of Public Health (IPH), in association with the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) and Sarvagna Health Care Institute (www.shci.in), another non for profit trust, kick started a project to change KG Halli to address issue of waste management. Bengaluru Development Minister Shri K J George inaugurated this program.
During the launch, residents in a colony of economic weaker section at Kadugondanahalli (KG Halli) were provided with two separate bins and awareness material about wet and dry waste for each house and Urban health team members created awareness about the importance of segregation at source for these residents.
The process of waste collection from house till the disposal will be followed up closely and documented to understand the effectiveness of this initiative and to scale it up to other areas in a phased manner.
To know more about this program click on the links below:
Maternal death is defined as “the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and the site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management, but not from accidental or incidental causes.” ICD-10,WHO, 1994.
It has been said that being pregnant and giving birth to a child is a joyous moment in a woman’s life. However where I come from, the prospect of dying during childbirth is an imminent threat that looms over every pregnant woman’s mind. It does not help that in India, even today, a large number of women deliver at home, with much higher figures in rural and remote areas.
When a woman dies during childbirth, she leaves behind more than a motherless child. The family is at risk of disintegration as a ripple effect. “Studies in developing countries indicate that the risk of death for children under five years doubles or even triples if their mother dies. Motherless children are likely to get less healthcare and education as they grow up. Girls, in particular, suffer because they are forced to drop out of school to look after their younger siblings. Maternal death is thus, almost inevitably, a double tragedy.”
For many maternal mortality is a particularly sensitive indicator of inequality. It is considered as a litmus test of the status of women, their access to healthcare, and the adequacy of the health care system in responding to their needs.
Jharkhand is one of the most underperforming states of the country. The maternal mortality ratio (MMR) in the state is much higher than the national average. In recent years there has been a drop in the MMR of the state of about 44%.
However there is still a long way to go. According to the third National Health and Family Survey in Jharkhand one could clearly see a gap in the health seeking behaviour among the women in different social groups during the antenatal care period. [5] More than a third of the marginalized groups do not have a single antenatal check-up during their pregnancy. Although more than half of women from the urban areas visit some type of healthcare facility (public, private, or trust) for delivery, in rural areas the percentage is only about 10 percent. This gap is also visible during the post natal care period. In rural areas in more than 80% of cases no pregnant women receives postnatal care services. This signifies that a major portion of the women do not undergo any type of postnatal check up, a period when the mortality rates are high.
When compared to other states in India, Jharkhand is amongst the ten worst performing states. Comparison with states which have a better MMR shows that a large number of deliveries in the better states are conducted by skilled birth attendants. This is not the case in Jharkhand. In addition to poor medical care, before, during, and after pregnancy, several factors play an important role in this situation. Low importance is given to women including reproductive care, and unfair customary practices which deprive pregnant women, lactating mothers, and infants of nutrition and food are prevalent in many areas of Jharkhand.
The definition above for maternal death is universally accepted and used for statistical enumeration. However more often than not the faces behind these numbers are forgotten. The agony women face during labour gets lost behind a big pile of paperwork. States like Jharkhand still suffer from problems that are not only due to medical methods.
Although at a national level we are improving in terms of the MMR and other maternal health indicators there are still states that are severely lagging behind. There are key equity issues such as social, economical, and geographical backgrounds that play important roles in maternal deaths. To nationally bring a change with respect to maternal deaths, the need of the hour is to help these low performing states improve and perform on par with other developed states.
Disclaimer: IPH blogs provide a platform for ePHM students to share their reflections on different public health topics. The views expressed here are solely those of the authors and not necessarily represent the views of IPH.
According to the 2011 census, approximately 400m of India’s 1.21bn population are “internal migrants.” These migrant communities in Indian cities constitute a large proportion of people living in urban slums.
Some of them have migrated from rural to urban settings as an entire family, others as parents, and some as individuals (the head of the household, for example). Some have become urban residents working in the construction industry, and they migrate back to their origin (homes) seasonally for agricultural work. Some migrate to escape civil conflict or domestic violence.
All face tremendous pressure to earn higher wages, as income opportunities in rural areas are very limited. Consequently, rapid urbanization in India has resulted in a high concentration of migrants in city slums.
Migrants are one of the most vulnerable groups in society, living in extreme poverty with low living standards; a lack of suitable housing, electricity, drinking water, sanitation, and cooking fuel; and without access to nutritious food, education, and healthcare.
Many migrant families will either have no identity documents, or government identity documents that are registered just to their place of origin. This means that without permanent residence in their current place of living, they’re not entitled to the services offered by state welfare schemes.
Because their families are living a nomadic life, children will often not have completed full immunisation or received health check-ups, increasing the risk of child mortality.
Two pregnant women I spoke to while visiting a slum in Bangalore say they didn’t receive regular antenatal and postnatal care. Indeed, many migrant women have home births (often because of a belief in following family tradition), which can adversely affect health outcomes for both mothers and babies, even if the local health centre is within walking distance.
If India is serious about achieving universal health coverage, it has to reach out to different parts of its population, including those on the move. The urban migrant community and their ability to access healthcare needs particular focus here.
Healthcare programmes should prioritise gathering data on these communities, which will result in the inclusion of many such migrant families and their children in government services. We need targeted health interventions and outreach efforts, which take into account the vulnerability of migrant women and children.
Disclaimer: IPH blogs provide a platform for ePHM students to share their reflections on different public health topics. The views expressed here are solely those of the authors and not necessarily represent the views of IPH.
Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp shares a short video about the work that IPH does to improve the health systems in India. In this video, various faculty members share their insights about their work.
The response from the invited students was amazing. The students who were based in Bengaluru visited our office and recorded a session with us. Others who were residing outside Bengaluru had a hangout or Skype session with us and recorded the classroom. The students took sessions on different topics like community participation, systems thinking, leadership and development, breast feeding and health systems dynamics framework. We converted their sessions into online classrooms and uploaded it on our online platform, Moodle for sharing with their peers.
by clicking on the image:
